The 2024 December session of the Foreign Medical Graduate Examination (FMGE) is scheduled for January 12. While the candidates can register for the exam till November 18, the lack of exam centres in a few states and UTs is making aspirants very nervous.
In an exclusive conversation with EdexLive, the National Board of Education in Medical Sciences' (NBEMS), popularly known as National Board of Education (NBE) Additional Director, Dr Vinay Gupta, talks about the lack of exam centres in a few states and union territories (UTs) for FMGE.
For more read:
Your views on why there are no FMGE exam centres in 11 states and six UTs...
FMGE is one of the high-stakes examinations conducted by NBEMS. Taking into consideration the sensitivity of this examination, in order to maintain its sanctity, NBEMS takes all possible measures to prevent any unfair practices that might be utilised by the candidates appearing for this exam.
One such measure is to limit the conduct of examination at centres that do not meet the stringent audit parameters related to secure conduct of examination. These parameters are logistics, systems used, software installed, technology partners, and others.
Therefore, the examination is not conducted in a few states/UTs due to the unavailability of desired categories of centres.
It is pertinent to note that when the examination was conducted in pen and paper mode earlier, the conduct of the examination was limited to the city of Delhi. Now, NBEMS shall be conducting the forthcoming FMGE in 55 cities across the country.
The computer-based test (CBT) mode of conducting the exam was adopted in June 2014.
The candidates are asked for four cities they would like to take their exams in. But instead of allocation as per preference, and of course, availability, a 'shuffle' method is used. Can you please explain this?
"In the recent past, NBEMS has identified incidences of unfair means adopted by desperate candidates who have been failing to qualify for the examination over the years, wherein, they have colluded with the staff of test centres to get an unfair advantage in the examination.
NBEMS has registered an FIR against such elements in the past and taken additional precautionary measures to prevent such incidences from happening again. The Agartala Centre in Tripura reported mass cheating by candidates, following which, the centre was omitted from the exam centres list.
The random allocation of the test city from among the four different choices being given by the candidate is one such measure. By way of this process, the candidate is unaware of the test city till two weeks prior to the conduct of the examination that shall be allocated to him or her, thereby, preventing any possibility of colluding with the exam functionaries at the test centres."
The practice of allocating one of the four preferences given by the candidate is also used by other test-conducting agencies in the country. NBEMS ensures secure conduct of examinations while affording the maximum possible convenience to the candidates.
